


sleep

by elliptical



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Depression, Emotional Abuse, Gen, it's just implied but i'll tag it anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2017-11-20 07:05:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliptical/pseuds/elliptical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>sometimes dave needs to be held.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this was therapeutic now i'm going to bed

sometimes dave needs to be held.

not treated like a baby or coddled into infinity, but simply held. hugged, cuddled with, all that affectionate shit. this is dumb and embarrassing, since being touchy-feely isn’t a strider thing. it’s a sissy thing.

bro’s really really really not big into physical affection or comfort, because being touchy-feely isn’t a strider thing. the most bro will offer is a hair ruffle or two. huggy lovey-dovey shit isn’t his style.

dave is very lonely a lot of the time. it’s hard to admit this even to himself, let alone other people. wallowing in self-pity is unacceptable. being overly emotional in general is unacceptable. striders don’t need other people. they rely on themselves and nobody else. they are cool and aloof and seal up their cracks with plaster and concrete.

dave sometimes thinks his cracks run too deep to seal. like there was an earthquake that dislodged the foundation and now everything is shaky. there’s no money to move out of the house so he just sits inside, staring at the empty walls and waiting for another earthquake to bring it tumbling down.

sometimes it hurts.

what hurts more is the way his mouth opens and the words he says never match up to what he means. the coat of sarcasm and irony accidentally got stuck. now it won’t move. communication is hard. after a while, he doesn’t try so much. his friends are happy with him the way he is. he cares about his friends more than anything, and as long as they’re happy, he’s

…

close enough.

dave starts to hate himself. he hates himself for being trapped and he hates himself for being a liar and he hates himself for being a sissy and most of all he hates himself for being a shitty excuse for a strider. he doesn’t cry. hasn’t cried since he was five. always holds it back. boys don’t cry. boys don’t feel like this, what the fuck. he doesn’t cry, but sometimes he wants to, and he hates himself for that too.

he’s just. so tired, all the time, no matter how much sleep he gets or exercise or food or whatever. existing is exhausting. lying in bed with the covers pulled over his head trying to nap is a much better use of time.

nobody notices. not even rose. he doesn’t know how to ask for help, but he hurts more by the day.

he wants to rest beside someone and listen to their breathing and just sleep and sleep and sleep wrapped up in their warmth and comfort and it doesn’t have to be romantic, it just has to be someone who won’t mind. there’s no easy way to ask for that either. john comes over for a sleepover at one point and dave curls up close to his friend’s sleeping bag even if he wants to slide all the way inside, and john laughs and makes a comment about how gay he is. he snorts, his body going on autopilot like it always does, tells john to watch out and cover his homo ass. then he crawls back into his bed and sleeps alone like a nondemented asshole.

his cracks run deeper by the day.

but he’s disconnected, he’s screaming and sobbing and breaking and nobody can hear him because he’s too big a dumbass to open his mouth. he goes through the days quickly and mindlessly, unfocused, and he can’t remember the last time he really felt something his hands touched.

one morning he manages to unhinge his jaw and scrape the words out, bro i think there’s something wrong with me. but his timing is all wrong because bro’s hungover and irritated and being bro.

fuck off and stop being a pussy, dave.

dave nods and walks silently back to his room and lies down.

he doesn’t cry.

striders never cry.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> karkat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> three years after publishing the first part i can't believe i was right
> 
> so here's an extremely late follow up because i'm tired and it's still therapeutic

sometimes dave needs to be held.

karkat vantas is really good at doing the holding.

it's not like he's The One, trademarked, postcard sent home about driving into the sunset. dave's reasonably sure they aren't even dating, since karkat would insist on making it official in some uniquely embarrassing fashion. they just happen to be fucked up in sort of similar ways, which means that karkat's the first one to see through his bullshit, which means that callousness has no place here.

both of them almost fuck it up a dozen times over, because they're both abrasive and they both hurt and dave's never been the kind of guy with a shoulder to cry on, his body has too many sharp angles, and karkat's not one to sugarcoat the truth. it makes things hard, sometimes. dave would love to toss in his brain and pick out a more pristine one, or at least to live out the trope where being loved makes all the mental illness go away.

he's just kind of really tired of being sick.

but he finds enough catharsis to cry in the safety of karkat's room, and it's messy and awkward and he apologizes a thousand times afterward, and karkat holds him. and he doesn't know how to cry like a normal person so he ends up with stuffed sinuses and one hell of a headache, but he falls asleep in karkat's arms and when he wakes up he feels... well, not cured, exactly, but a little less heavy.

karkat cries a lot more often than he does; he's never immersed himself in that side of a masculinity complex. karkat's pain bleeds out in other ways, usually involving shouting or tugging at his hair or ripping up old papers and tangible memories like he can scrub away his past failures. he's easily agitated, but he understands boundaries better than dave does, and dave trusts him. trusts him with a lot, offers up his own vulnerability and says do with this what you will. he just doesn't always know the right things to say when he's not the one suffering, but he remembers, he knows how it is to feel fucked up and scream and have no one hear you, so even at a loss for words he holds karkat too.

karkat's not perfect. karkat's not a band aid. karkat's not a fairytale romance, knight in shining armor, come to sweep him off his feet and whisk all the demons away. that's a little more pedestal responsibility than dave thinks he should be tossing at his friends.

but karkat holds him, and he holds karkat, and it's in this symbiotic relationship that he starts to feel like a real person. starts to understand what real even is.

sometimes he even thinks maybe he might be okay.


End file.
